Thursday, 22 January 2015

Using the IWB to Support Post-21 Planning for Students with Developmental Disabilities

For many teachers, one of the most impactful experiences of the IWB Learning Community journey is the opportunity to co-plan and co-teach with their Itinerant Resource Teacher. During these opportunities, HSP or ISP teachers are provided with a half-day of release time in order to meet with an Itinerant Resource Teacher to co-plan an authentic and relevant lesson using their classroom’s IWB. Collaboratively, special education classroom teachers and their Assistive Technology Itinerant Resource Teacher support differentiated learning by creating an interactive, multi-sensory lesson using the Promethean IWB.

Recently, Learning Community Member and teacher at Nelson A. Boylen, George Liolis hosted an IWB observation lesson. During his co-planning session with his Itinerant Resource Teacher, George chose to focus on his unit on ‘Employability Skills’ for his senior low-incidence class.

Through a variety of IWB activities; which included features such as containers, layering, and embedding video and sound students learned to identify the job titles, job duties and job tools associated with working at grocery store, as a custodial workers and at a restaurant. Through this lesson, students were supported as they sorted images of job duties associated with a specific job role and identified the job tools required to each tasks. Mr. Liolis’ students eagerly participated in the lesson and demonstrated sustained attention and excitement!

Throughout the lesson, students chose to access the board in a variety of ways. In this picture, one student uses the ActivWand to complete a container activity in which she sorts images of job tools associated with a custodial worker. When she chooses a correct tool she hears a reward sound of cheering, if an incorrect image is chosen, it bounces out of the container. This activity provides immediate feedback and supports errorless instruction. This lesson truly met the needs of Mr. Liolis’ students and supported their skill development.

Our Learning Community members who attended this observation lesson, left feeling motivated and inspired to try new tools and features of the IWB to support student learning within their intermediate/senior low-incidence programs.